(gibson) More than three years after their last album, 2007’s Icky Thump, The White Stripes seem to be heading back into the studio. Jack White explained to Vanity Fair that the delay was partially caused by a few projects had to happen first.

“We thought we’d do a lot of things that we’d never done: a full tour of Canada, a documentary, coffee-table book, live album, a boxed set. It was one long project that took almost three years,” White said. “Now that we’ve gotten a lot of that out of our system, Meg and I can get back in the studio and start fresh.”